Veritus, any company with a documented strategy of...

Veritus, any company with a documented strategy of 'consolidation of a fragmented market' (read: roll-up), is going to have a large portion of it's balance sheet in intangibles.

To acquire business' you have to pay for them most of the time, and usually for more than whatever is sitting on their balance sheet. The difference is recorded as an intangible.

So the question worth asking aren't 'how big is the intangible?' but 'how robust was the valuation on purchase?' and 'is the income from this intangible asset sufficiently covering the cost of funding it's purchase?'